10.24.2012

WIUW Fall Treat!

Today I have a super easy no bake, no mess, yummy treat that has the perfect balance of salty and sweet together!! And because this treat involves candy corn it really makes it a seasonal treat that I look forward to every fall!

So here you go all you need is equal portions of both honey roasted peanuts and candy corn! Dump both into a bowl and mix well:

Now really it's done that's it! You can start enjoying it! But because I really do not want to eat the whole bowl by myself I usually like to package some up all cute and share with friends, co-workers, teachers, it is even a cute little gift for visiting teachers!

So today I'm going to share with you one of my favorite rubber stamping techniques called crayon resist! Now this technique works best with stamps that outline images NOT with Bold images that don't need to be colored in. You will also need glossy cardstock, a WHITE Crayon, several colors of ink, and a sponge.

So to get started you will stamp your image with BLACK ink onto the glossy card stock:

Let it dry for a few seconds (sometimes ink takes a little longer to dry on glossy). Now you are ready to start outlining your image with a White Crayon:

After you have outlined as much of your image as you want you will take your sponge dab it into your ink pad and then start dabbing your glossy piece of card stock:

Keep going until either the glossy card stock is filled up or however much ink you desire (Also make sure you only use one spot of your sponge for each color so that you don't end up dragging dark colors onto your lighter colored stamp pads and ruin them)

It should look something like this. Now take a paper towel and use good pressure and wipe off crayon, also this will help kind of smooth your ink

Viola! The places where you had the crayon now show up white, and helps the stamped image show up even better!

You are now ready to layer this onto some coordinating card stock and add some ribbon or any other extras you might like:

10.03.2012

I've been doing a much better job of making bread lately. Which I don't know why I ever get lazy and stop. It's totally whole wheat and tastes great. And since I use my bread machine my part takes all of about 10 minutes. Thats if I don't already have the wheat ground. So really I don't have much of an excuse to not make it more!

Pretty much every time I make a loaf after not having it for a while it is devoured in about 2 hours. Usually everyone has at least one large slice while its warm. And then we all keep munching away on it until its gone.

Well I wanted to try something different because I would normally just make some honey butter. I remembered I had pinned some recipes for some orange butter and I thought that sounded really good so off I went to my pinned items. And for whatever reason I kept finding different recipes for cinnamon honey butter and decided that I should make that instead. So I did. I found this recipe at eatcakefordinner I mean really how can anything bad come a site like that??

Well this one is such a winner with my family, that we just kind of have it around all the time now. Unfortunately that means that the bread tends to go even a little faster.

So are you ready for totally easy?

Here you go.

1/2 C. butter
1/4 C. honey
1/4 C. powder sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Whip butter for 30 seconds. Add powdered sugar, honey and cinnamon and beat until smooth. (Okay I'm not going to lie I just threw everything in together and just mixed it all until it was smooth and it worked just fine too.)

Yep that's it!
Also just so you know several of the other recipes I saw called for much more honey / powder sugar to the amount of butter. But this is sweet enough I can't imagine adding more sweet to this.

Of course the first time I had this I think I only had about 3 slices in one sitting. I've tried very hard to slow that down but really I should just go to the gym instead so I can keep eating it!

9.19.2012

WIUW! My favorite soup: French Onion Soup!

I know it feels like fall when the weather starts to cool off a bit, the kids are all back in school and yes even the leaves on the trees are starting to change

But for me it just isn't fall until I have officially started to make French Onion Soup! One of my most favorite comfort foods!

So today for my WIUW post I'm am going to share my recipe with you..(actually I can't take credit for this one, this comes from my in-laws...But trust me They can cook!) But of course you will know this is one of my recipes simply because I love the less is more kind of food! So you'll notice that this is yet another great recipe that uses just a few ingredients and the best part of all!? I timed myself today when I made this and even with chopping the onions that made me cry and taking pictures for this post it only took me 27 minutes to make! Woo Hoo! So that sounds like a great place to start, here are the ingredients that you will need:

1/4 c. butter

2C. Onions Thinly sliced (I like to use large purple onions)

1 TBS Flour

4 C Beef Stock

1 TBS Worcestershire sauce

1/8 tsp. Garlic Powder

Croutons

Mozzarella cheese

Just a quick note this recipe is easy to double, triple whatever! Also I don't ever really measure the onions..I just find that 2 Large purple onions work perfect, 4 if you double it, 6 if you triple etc....

lets start by Thinly slicing your onions

And saute them in butter

While you are sauteing your onions dump your beef stock, Worcestershire, and garlic into your sauce pan and let it start to simmer.

Once your onions are tender, sprinkle with 1 tablespoon flour and cook for a minute or two and stir the flour into the onions. Then add to your broth mixture Simmer your soup covered for 45 minutes.

Okay side note here. In the past I've used 2 Tbs of dried orange zest. It was okay but once you use the fresh zest you will not want to have the dried in there anymore. So just trust me here make sure you have the orange! Ok continuing with the recipe...

Blend in sifted ingredients and pour into 2 greased pans.

So in my greased pan (because there can never be too much sugar right?) I sprinkle a sugar cinnamon mixture before I pour the batter in. And then I actually sprinkle just a little over the top too.

Bake on 350 for 50 Min - I find that I need to cook mine closer to 60 min. So just make sure the tooth pick is clean.

9.06.2012

While The Kids Are Away...Mom will Play!

Well something like that! Actually this project I want to share with you was a little project that my son and I created to give to his teacher at my son's school open house. (really nothing special....just some fun school supplies for the teacher to use! the fun part was how we "Wrapped" it up for her!)

So to get started obviously you'll need a clean empty juice bottle! Then pick out your supplies to put inside your bottle (The gift) and also your supplies to decorate your bottle...The fun part! As you can see I used rubber stamps, ink, card stock, material and ribbon to decorate my bottle

The first thing I do after I have all of my stuff together I take off the label from the juice bottle and use that to measure how big I need to make my label (I made mine a little bit smaller so that I could layer the white stamped label on top of the blue card stock.)

Now you are ready to start stamping or however you would like to decorate your new label that will go around your gift bottle

Once your label is stamped up you may want to make a top for your bottle I used a piece of very cheap cotton material! Stamped on it to match my bottle then used a coordinating color of ribbon to tie it over my bottle top! Ok Now that the decorating is done we are ready to put our gift inside the bottle! Take an exacto knife and cut a small opening (That your label will cover when you are done)

Once you've got your surprise in the bottle you are ready to assemble it back together! I used a small piece of clear packaging tape to over the plastic that I had cut. Then I put some double stick tape onto the back of the white label and centered it on the blue label. I then put some double stick tape on the back of the blue cardstock and put it on the bottle where I wanted my new label to go....however I did also use some more of the clear packaging tape to hold the edges down on the side where the label met. It doesn't really show that much and still looks really cute....Next place your stamped fabric over the juice lid and tie it with a ribbon to hold it in place and Viola! You've created a cute gift! I've done this for birthday presents, I've even done this for my dad one year for his father's day gift! Hope you enjoy and have fun creating a fun gift idea for someone you love.....As for us were are just hoping for a few brownie points with my son's new teacher!!

Hope you are getting some "Fun time" Now that the kiddos are all back in school!!

9.05.2012

1st Day of school.... You know you gotta have something SWEET waiting for them...Why not try this: Marshmallow Fudge Brownies!

Ok Ok Ok! I can not tell a lie! This is totally from Pinterest! I wanted to try something new for my kids and this is what I decided on.....Really it was a hard decision...I mean have you seen Pinterest lately? There's a million things I'd love to make! Oh how I need to work out more often! I'm trying to find the original post so I can share it with you ans also so no one gets mad at me!!!

So let's get started Pre heat your oven to 350! You will need the following ingredients:

1 cup buttered softened (Ok the original recipe called for margarine)

2 cups sugar

1/3 cup cocoa

4 eggs

1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp vanilla

1 10 oz bag of miniature marshmallows (Now don't you just know it's going to be good?? How can it go wrong with marshmallows!?)

First mix butter, sugar and cocoa in mixer and mix well:

Next add one egg at a time mixing well before adding the next egg. Now add vanilla mix. then you are ready to add the dry ingredients flour, & salt mix well...I couldn't believe how fluffy and light it looked it reminded me of frosting!

See doesn't it look yummy...It is yes I tried it!!

Now grease a 10x15x1 in pan...(Next time I make this I will just use my jellyroll pan it is a little larger but I think it will work better we'll see!) Spread the batter evenly in the pan. See what I mean it looks like frosting!!

Now bake at 350 degrees for 22-25 minutes (I should have cooked mine just a couple more minutes but oh well they tasted great and my kids loved them!) I have to share my little helper here with you isn't he just the cutest!?

When you can insert a toothpick into the center of your brownies and it comes out clean they are cooked! Pull out of the oven and sprinkle the whole bag of marshmallows over your brownies put back into the over for 3 minutes or until they just start to become golden : Looks like Heaven

Mix all the above ingredients until smooth, then when the brownies are completely cooled off frost. Just a note I think I frosted mine a little too early....I couldn't help it my 9 year old son was walking into the house yelling "Hey! Mom did you make us something for our first day of school!? SO I had to hurry and frost them so he could enjoy and boy did he enjoy as did my other kids when they got home however they would NOT let me take their picture! Darn kids!

ok these are still really warm and really needed to set up a little more but we couldn't wait...they looked better later

8.29.2012

I know I know this isn't a true WIUW but we are going for this anyway today!

My life seriously flies by way too fast! And I know that I'm not taking enough time to really enjoy my kids and everything we have going on. Sometimes it is just going through the motions (which really means just running from one activity to another and another and another so on). So here is a perfect example. My big kids have already been in school a full week! And my little one had her first day of preschool yesterday. And the baby well we have a few years! You may not want to go through all of this but maybe some of you can relate and maybe others of you are much better mothers that say "no" and don't get too bogged down with activities.

Here's a list of what our week has been for the first week:Wed. School, karate, football practiceThurs.School, check out for Dr. appts, 10 year old birthday, karate, preschool open house, scout pack meetingFri. school, play with friends, (which somehow resulted in a beach / lake area in the sand pit in the back yard), football practiceSat. football game, 1st volleyball practice, several runs to the DI, and a clean garage!Sun. Church, my normal sunday drive with the Hubs!, birthday dinner-cake and ice cream with family for the 10 yr oldMon. school, karate, football practiceTues. school, 1st day of preschool, piano lessons, 1 on 1 football practice with grandpa, volleyball practiceWed. school / preschool, another check out for dentist appts., scouts, football practice
rinse repeat and do all over again.

Is anyone with me here or do I need to really hear "Just say no"

So see that is why sometimes I have a hard time really enjoying and living in the now. However this week I have also been much better about reading to my kids and Dad has even sat down with us a few times its been great. Kids have not been getting to bed as early as I'd like but they seem happy and we are having a great time. So you win some you lose some.

Okay I know serious tangent but I promise this post involves food and it actually deals with school too so now we are ready right?

Do you have any 1st day of school traditions?

For the last several years on the 1st day of school we have a little bus stop breakfast. It really helps that there are 10-12 kids at our stop. So we all go out early and pump the kids with some sugar before we send them off on their first day of school. And everyone loves it!!

Here are some of the pics of what we have going on....

This is what everyone loves

Homemade doughnuts!

and

Homemade cinnamon rolls

We also had fruit and juice, milk etc. but really who wants that when all this WARM goodness is around. I totally snag a couple doughnuts for myself every year! I just can't help myself! It's also a little hard to get mad when you find the kids sneaking extras...

His comment is "what I haven't had breakfast yet I can't go to school hungry"

There was more of this cheesy grin every where I went

Oh and the modeling poses where's the runway

Did you see we even have a couple of dads (the blonde one's mine!) that come join in the fun.
Then the moment we've all been waiting for ...

The bus of course.
They all choose to ride and of course 1/2 the moms follow because we then have to get shots at school too (Yes I'm one of those moms and one day I may scrapbook with them too).

So that's a run down of our tradition on the 1st day of school. What do you have going on? I know lots of you started on Monday and yet there are still some of you that haven't started yet so here's an idea for you if not!

8.22.2012

Now go back and read the name of these cinnamon rolls again! Don't you just love it! Yes! It really uses a Cake Mix! Well If you are reading this then You might be like me looking for some quick and easy yummy breakfasts to make for your back to school kids (Naoni's kids start today! I'm kind of jealous we don't go back until after labor day.)

Ok, so no doubt you've obviously figured out our first ingredient... Now lets give you the rest!

1 white or yellow cake mix

2 pkg yeast

1 tsp. salt

2 cups flour

2 1/2 cups hot water

3 cups flour

butter to taste

cinnamon to taste

sugar to taste

Ohmygosh! I just realized that there are eggs in the picture and NOPE this recipe does not call for eggs!! Oops sorry my bad!

combine the first 4 ingredients, mix well.

Add 2 1/4 cups of hot water. Mix.

Add 3 cups flour and knead (yes knead you'll have to take your rings off and use your hands its the only way! Trust me!) Once your done it should look something like this:

Now let rise until double in size.....I let mine rise for about 45 minutes and it looked like this hope you can see the difference:

Now take your dough and roll it out into a large rectangle shape (I had sprinkled a little bit of flour on my surface, but I'm not sure you would even need it?!)

Now melt butter and spread onto dough (I used 1/4 cup) Then sprinkle your desired amount of sugar and cinnamon

Now roll up your dough

Now cut into 1 - 1 1/2 in slices and place on pan and let rise until double it's size

While you are waiting for your rolls to rise pre heat oven to 350 degrees (I let my pan of rolls sit on the stove top to help them rise faster!)

Once your rolls have doubled in size place them in your oven and bake for 20 min

While your rolls are baking you could make up a quick frosting I just used:

1/4 c butter melted

1/4 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

dash of salt

then add powder sugar until it reaches the consistency you want (You'll want it a little thinner than normal frosting)

You might wanna let your rolls cool off a little more than I did I got a little carried away with all of the icing but come on doesn't it look yummy?????

So my kids aren't actually dressed and ready for school (Hee hee it's almost 10 at night here! we're all about ready for bed I hope! PS the boy in the middle is part of our extended family....not my son by birth but by friendship to my son and has been with us most of the summer!)

Well I hope you all enjoy your cake mix cinnamon rolls! I have a kitchen to go clean!